Volume 296 no. 4 / November 2005
Allen, Woody, as clarinet virtuoso, 112-114; singing voice of, 112; "sad gargoyle face" of, 112; riot-ready French fans of, 112; on neo-puritanism, 114
Baudelaire, Charles, chronological sheepishness of, 106
Baumbach, Noah, Kicking and Screaming director, as not Will Ferrell, 147
Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, Pakistani leader, as demagogue, 68; as visionary, 68; grass-eating defense policy of, 68, 76
Biggs, Charmaine, smoking-gun shopping spree of, 186
Biggs, Ronnie, Great Train Robber, jailbreak of, 186; Brazilian hideaway of, 187; Sex Pistols cameo of, 187; Die Toten Hosen and, 187; pop-star child of, 187; Marmite cravings of, 187
Bono, U2 front man, as Nobel candidate, 50; as megachurch emissary, 108
Bontrager, Bob, enrollment manager, as eater of others' lunch, 128; as kicker of others' asses, 128
Bowles, Paul, as composer, 114
Branson, Richard, Virgin chairman, flying beauty salon envisioned by, 172
Brezhnev, Leonid, dirty limericks and, 88
Brock, David, as right-wing hitman, 106; as left-wing hitman, 106; ash-covered head of, 106; tennis-pro jaw of, 106
Bush, Barbara, as Mailer dinner companion, 117
Bush, George W., as Robin Hood, 42; as Nobel long shot, 50; as Elmore Leonard fan, 154
Butler, Smedley, general, anti-FDR coup and, 87
Charles I, as "feeble, alcoholic murderer," 52; as "man of peace," 52
Chase, Salmon P., as Lincoln rival, 95; villainy of, 95; terrible speaking skills of, 95; political promiscuity of, 95; as face of dollar bill, 95
Chavez, Hugo, as Condi crush, 11; beret of, 50; as Nobel candidate, 50
Churchill, Winston, as historian, 152; publishing riches of, 152; ghostwriting staff of, 152; self-interested airbrushing of, 152
Cleaver, Ward, innumerable crimes of, 161
Colbert, Jean Baptiste, French finance minister, on taxation, 42; on goose-plucking, 42
Cranmer, Chris, British naval technician, as Satanist, 169
Curran, Paul, special counsel, as peanut inquisitor, 44
De Mornay, Rebecca, Risky Business star turn of, 147
Dickens, Charles, as penologist, 110
Diller, Barry, Picasso skull of, 114
Douglass, Frederick, on Lincoln fatigue, 92
Drexler, Peggy, gender scholar, Jiffy Pop theory of masculinity as articulated by, 161
Escriva, José Maria, Opus Dei founder, fast-track canonization of, 52
Fall, Albert, as Teapot Dome ringleader, 44; misbegotten livestock of, 44
Fiske, Edward, college critic, floodgates opened by, 138-139
Franklin, Benjamin, as jujitsu master, 163-166; as non-vegetarian, 164; stupid aphorisms of, 166; as historical corrective, 166
Fussell, Betty, food writer, live-duck recipe of, 88
Gandhi, Mahatma, craftiness of, 64; religious chauvinism of, 64
Garrison, William Lloyd, near-lynching of, 115-116
Geldof, Bob, as Pink Floyd mediator, 50; as Nobel candidate, 50
Geyl, Pieter, Dutch historian, Toynbee takedown of, 157
Goodwin, Doris Kearns, as "historian next door," 92; normal hair of, 92, 94; fateful footnotes of, 94; as play-by-play announcer, 100
Hammarskjöld, Dag, as posthumous Nobelist, 50
Hemingway, Ernest, favorite conjunction of, 157
Howell, Algie T., Virginia legislator, underwear oversight maintained by, 167-168; posture fatwa of, 168
John Paul II, as Nobel candidate, 50; canonization binge of, 52
Johnson, Andrew, as sixties icon, 92
Johnson, Lyndon, undeclared war of, 54; as book critic, 94; fleeting memory of, 94
Jong, Erica, bittersweet Eden sought by, 162
Kennedy, Anthony, as legal comparativist, 48-52; as impeachment target, 48
Kennedy, Ted, as perceived security risk, 108
Khan, Abdul Quadeer, metallurgist, as father of Pakistani bomb, 62-85; vacation home of, 62-63; slowly sinking speedboat of, 64; foreordained stomach pain of, 66; as self-starter, 70; as scavenger, 70; as ogler, 71; Strangelovean tics of, 80-82; outsize humility of, 82; as VVIP, 85; outlived usefulness of, 85
Kray, Ronnie, perfect manners of, 186; homicidal streak of, 186
Landis, John, as Animal House director, 147; enduring legacy of, 147
Lawrence, D. H., extreme humorlessness of, 164
Leda, manufacturing output of, 178
Leigh Fermor, Patrick, teen adventurer, trans-Europe stroll of, 150; as freeloader, 150; as swashbuckling shepherd, 150; allusive charm of, 150
Leonard, Elmore, on "hooptedoodle," 153; debilitating cool of, 153-159; smoothly planed surfaces of, 155; Sartre as summarized by, 156; perfect-ear imperfections of, 157-158
Lincoln, Abraham, bottomless legacy of, 92; as consoling figure, 94; as scholarly mirror, 95; "feline swats" of, 96; as masochistic manager, 96; as "greatest character since Christ," 102
Madison, James, as undeclared warmonger, 54
Madonna, Chernobyl cleanup as undertaken by, 169
Mailer, Norman, ironic eyes of, 116; octogenarian youthfulness of, 117; as "little stone golem," 117
Marcus, Bernard, Home Depot co-founder, as lord of the deep, 11
Martin, Bill, as Christian nudism entrepreneur, 168-169
Maslov, Aleksei, Russian "historian," on Atlantis, 166; on man's horned ancestors, 166
McBride, James, as "Mr. Skin," 87; market forces unleashed by, 87
McCarthy, Cormac, overbearing "ands" of, 157
Mirren, Helen, nude scenes of, 87
Moran, Jim, Virginia lawmaker, as erection watchdog, 167
Mother Teresa, as peace Nobelist, 50; disreputability of, 89
Neeson, Liam, as potential screen Lincoln, 100
Nehru, Jawaharlal, nuclear ambitions of, 68
Ose, Douglas, congressman, "tits" tolerance of, 168
Pétain, Henri Philippe, as serial fornicator, 151; peasant background of, 151; treason conviction of, 151; as non-traitor, 151
Pevsner, Nikolaus, architectural historian, on ecclesiastical ugliness, 157
Philips, Dan, as Bacon of the Month Club founder, 179
Podesta, John, as maiden aunt, 105
Posner, Richard, on drawbacks of international nose-counting, 52
Powell, Colin, as Nobel candidate, 50
Powers, Austin, neglectful father of, 161
Reynolds, Bruce, as Great Train Robber, 186; antiques store of, 186
Riefenstahl, Leni, Leave It to Beaver and, 161
Roberts, Morganna, as kissing bandit, 87; sixty-inch chest of, 87; as samizdat subject, 87
Roosevelt, Franklin, as coup target, 87; non-Freudian cigarette holder of, 98; as "fanatical, Supreme Court-packing bigot," 103
Sandburg, Carl, as Lincoln hagiographer, 92; as ringmaster, 92
Satan, seaborne following of, 169; seat-back looking glass of, 176
Seward, William Henry, as Lincoln rival, 95; as Gladstone pal, 96; as Victoria acquaintance, 96
Shankar, Ravi, as Nobel candidate, 50
Shawn, William, smoldering passions inspired by, 88-89
Shearer, Harry, on Jerry Lewis, 89-90
Sistani, Ali, grand ayatollah, on nocturnal water consumption, 167; suckling guidelines offered by, 167
Slipper, Jack, Scotland Yard hero, shoe size of, 186; pencil moustache of, 186; Clouseauvian bungling of, 187; forgotten folkways of, 187
Snoop Dogg, as porn auteur, 87
Soros, George, tousled aspect of, 115; Karl Popper and, 115; European nostalgia of, 115
Stalin, Joseph, as Elmore Leonard contemporary, 156
Stendhal, forgettable plays of, 112
Stevens, Cat, as perceived security risk, 108
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, as ideal airline passenger, 174-175
Toynbee, Arnold, declining market value of, 157; as multi-tasker, 157
Vedder, Richard, economist, on higher-education vouchers, 126
Veerman, Frits, former A. Q. Khan officemate, as observer of speed limits, 71; as cheese bearer, 71; as whistleblower, 71-74
Waugh, Evelyn, as Elmore Leonard forebear, 156
Weinzweig, Ari, olive-oil authority, on bacon, 179
Westheimer, Ruth, spiritual offspring of, 144-147
Whitman, Walt, as starstruck Lincoln fan, 102
Wilentz, Sean, historian, as big-biography critic, 100
Yushchenko, Viktor, Ukrainian president, as Nobel candidate, 50
Zia ul Haq, Pakistani leader, whispered threats of, 82; mysterious death of, 82